The present invention relates to a computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for qualitatively assessing local area networks and more specifically to permitting such assessments to be performed, in part, at a central server, outside the local area network.
Information Technology (IT) departments for organizations are in a constant battle to upgrade hardware, software and personnel policies to assure that only authorized employees and contractors modify their local area networks and data processing systems. Among the activities to defend against are spying, unauthorized command and control, and the leaking of information concerning the LAN that an IT department is charged with operating.
Some forms of vulnerability, that undermine these efforts, include poor password selection or policies; bad configurations to computer equipment; and defective or insecure software—sometimes referred to as obsolete. Evidence of such problems has traditionally been obtained by performing a network scan of one or more machines attached to a network.
However, to perform such a network scan, the device that performs the scan must be present on the network. This is perfectly fine for situations where the IT department has the staff, training and suitable device for scanning, including its scanning software. However, IT departments, especially for smaller organizations, either lack this functionality, or would like to audit the methods currently used in-house, by personnel that have different or better training, for example, by sub-contracting the job to specialists.
In the traditional way, specialists would appear onsite to the LAN, attach their scanning device, and wait for a full report to be produced, normally stored to a disk or other non-volatile storage in their device. However, the raw output from the scanning, was seldom suitable to provide a list actions to take to correct deficiencies in a manner understandable to an IT department. Accordingly, some alternative, less labor-intensive approach is needed.